Juba, South Sudan – Growing up, Khloe Nyanda and the women and girls around her were taught “to be small and not take up spaces”, the 21-year-old says.

But the model and law student at the University of Juba followed her own instincts, and role models who showed her that a different way was possible.

“Adut Akech took her identity as a refugee and turned it into a crown,” Nyanda says, referring to the internationally known South Sudanese model who spent her earliest days in a refugee camp before moving abroad with her family.

The rise of South Sudanese icons like her is the tangible evidence Nyanda hoped to use to convince her family that a career in the industry was possible for their daughter.

“Ninety-five percent of the models you see from South Sudan will tell you the same thing: Adut Akech is the spark,” she emphasised.

Nyanda sits with practised poise at The Baobab House in Juba, a cultural hub that has become a haven for many artists and creatives in the capital city. She speaks with quiet confidence about the milestones in her career and the usually unspoken realities that shadowed them.

Nyanda’s life has been defined by movement. She was born in Yirol, about 200-250 kilometres (roughly 125-155 miles) northwest of Juba, spent her childhood in Nairobi, Kenya, and later returned to Juba.

In 2016, at age 14, she decided modelling was something she wanted to pursue, but for years her family viewed the overlap between her academic life and her dream with unease.

Inspired by the international success of models like Akech, Nyanda began modelling in 2023. But her family remained unconvinced about the profession as a career option.

The disapproval from within this patriarchal system hardened into estrangement. Eventually, Nyanda lost her support network, including her stepbrother, who had raised her since she was seven years old. This was exacerbated by her rejection of a man they had chosen for her to marry.

“They don’t support me,” Nyanda laments.

Barriers

Despite emerging talent, South Sudan’s weak internal infrastructure acts as a cage, limiting how far ambition can travel.

For aspiring models, the absence of credible, protective “mother agencies” means young women are especially vulnerable to predatory agents and abusive trainers, models say.

Nyanda says she experienced this complexity firsthand when she rejected the advances of a modelling coach. After she refused to date him, she says it ignited personal tensions that ended up costing her paid modelling opportunities and left her with broken dreams.

On paper, Nyanda is a professional whose work demands mobility and a hybrid identity – moving between cultures, countries and high-fashion capitals. But in reality, her South Sudanese passport has become another barrier.

Since 2023, she has faced multiple visa rejections, despite being signed by agencies in London, Paris and Italy.

The first attempt to attend Milan Fashion Week 2023 was rejected by the Italian embassy in Nairobi due to bank statement issues linked to her small agency. A second attempt, through I Am Model Management for Paris, failed twice at the French embassy in Kampala, Uganda.

Neither France nor Italy have embassies in South Sudan, so hopefuls have to get travel papers from neighbouring countries, adding more barriers and expenses.

“It is a wall I am trying to break with my bare hands,” Nyanda says.

Support

Like Nyanda, 20-year-old Alek Mayen Garang is also striving to balance her modelling ambitions with her studies as a senior high school student.

Garang was born in Greater Jonglei in eastern South Sudan, some 200km north of Juba, and raised in Renk, in the northernmost county bordering Sudan.

When she was young, her family relocated to Kampala, Uganda. But the 2016 conflict pushed them back to South Sudan, adding another layer of upheaval to her formative years.

Garang is inspired to model by the global icon, Anok Yai, an American of South Sudanese ancestry who was named model of the year at the 2025 British Fashion Awards.

Like Nyanda, Garang also faced strong resistance at home when, as a 10-year-old, she first developed an interest in one day joining the industry. Her family worried about how she could juggle education with the demands of the runway.

Yet, unlike Nyanda, she found a crucial ally within her household: Her elder sister attended her first runway show when she was 18 and helped negotiate a measure of trust between Garang and their parents.

“I remember telling my dad about the show. He was unsure about the industry, asking my sister, ‘What is this modelling? I don’t know much about it,'” she recalled.

“It was my first late-night event, and it only happened after he agreed to let my sister accompany me.”

For Garang, her early hurdles were technical rather than diplomatic: learning to walk in high heels, maintaining her figure through strict dieting, and sustaining meticulous skincare.

Like many young models, rejection remains her greatest fear, the spectre that haunts auditions and castings.

Still, she clings to a simple, unwavering commitment to “never give up”.

Dominating the catwalk

South Sudan’s impact on global fashion is already visible.

Nine of the world’s top 50 models ranked by models.com are originally from the country, a remarkable statistic that speaks to both the depth of its talent and the hunger of its youth to be seen.

Many former models have transitioned into design, including Akur Majok, who transitioned from modelling to pursue her passion for fashion design; Dawson Dau Amou, the founder of South Sudan Fashion Week; and David Shegold, who specialises in creating custom wedding gowns.

Some industry veterans have become coaches and now actively scout new talent, noting the rising visibility of Black models on international runways.

These veterans often urge young models to prioritise education while pursuing their careers, insisting that academic grounding and professional aspirations can and must coexist.

But at the same time, a new anxiety is emerging: the fear that, as technology advances, AI-generated Black models could eventually displace human ones. For some in the industry, this possibility adds yet another layer of precarity to already fragile careers.

Within South Sudan, there is also growing concern about the limited engagement of the Ministry of Culture, Museums and National Heritage in supporting and branding the modelling industry.

Many in the field believe the ministry could play a crucial role in communicating to communities and parents that modelling can be a legitimate, respectable profession.

Without that advocacy, families remain hesitant to allow their daughters and sons to enter the industry. Some parents worry that modelling will lead to neglect of cultural norms or cause their children to lose their sense of connection to home.

Al Jazeera reached out to the Ministry of Culture for comment, but they did not respond in time for publication.

Commitment to South Sudan

Against this backdrop, Nyanda and Garang are navigating more than catwalk choreography and camera angles. They are negotiating with tradition, bureaucracy and technology, all while insisting on their right to take up space.

Their longing to stride down the runways of international fashion weeks collides with the hard realities of social conservatism, fragile infrastructure and the politics of global mobility.

They confront systems that often hinder women’s ambitions through social alienation, exploitative practices and repeated visa denials at consular windows around the world.

But both remain determined to chase their dream in a country still in the process of becoming itself – motivated by the possibility that, in doing so, they might help redraw the boundaries of what is imaginable for the next generation.

In March, Garang won a modelling award in the “creativity” category at the national Miss Junub beauty pageant. Since then, her aspirations widened from personal success to a broader commitment to shaping the future of South Sudan’s fashion industry – including supporting and mentoring rising talents.

Nyanda’s ambition has always been driven by more than personal visibility or vanity.

She carries a radical philanthropic blueprint: dreaming not only of walking for Dior and Louis Vuitton, but of using her success to build institutions at home.

Beyond her own modelling aspirations, she is also determined to invest her future savings into creating a safe, credible mother agency in South Sudan, alongside a school and hospital for orphans, to help reinvest in her country.

“South Sudan is not a place I am running from,” she says. “It is the place I am running for.”